


Lost Love is Sweeter When It's Finally Found

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 06:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20792156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Ever since things got messy with Alex and Michael, Kyle keeps pushing for them to get back together, but he's trying much too hard for someone without his own hidden motives.





	Lost Love is Sweeter When It's Finally Found

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [knownochill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenightpainter/pseuds/knownochill) for the beta on this one!
> 
> My very first Valentines ever, with the title coming from Past Lives by Børns.

When Noah dies and Jesse is officially pronounced braindead, it’s like Alex can turn the page on his life, into a new chapter. He feels like the chapter should have ended the day in the junkyard when Michael had never turned up to talk. He’d told himself that he understood, and it hurts because of how much he does. It’s Michael’s turn to walk away and Alex doesn’t _deserve_ it, but he understands it. It’s not what feels like a bookend to that awful period, though. It’s later, when Kyle tells him over a beer that his father is never going to wake up again and Alex laughs out loud, caught off guard by how _happy_ he is and how much it finally feels like he can write the conclusion to that shitty chapter of his life, as annotated by dear old Dad.

The strange part of this new chapter of Alex’s life is Kyle.

When Alex starts up without his father’s shadow looming over him, he comes away with a new resolution to undo the harm that Jesse and his grandfather have spent years doing. It means that he spends a lot of time with Kyle, which is fine by Alex, because it’s easy and _good_. They really do make a good team, when they’re on the same page.

The only hiccup in all of this is the way that Kyle’s acting. 

At first, Alex figures that Kyle is being a supportive friend to try and make up for all the years he’d been the polar opposite. Every time he encourages Alex to talk to Michael or listens to him venting about his frustrations when it comes to not knowing how to do any of this, he figures it’s because Kyle has something to make up for.

Because Alex selfishly wants Kyle to grovel (in whatever way he decides), he lets it happen.

When Michael chooses Maria, that’s when things start to get a little weird. It’s not from Michael’s end, because Alex understands that things between them are fraught. Given that he’d been the one to walk away and end it, he’d given Michael the choice, no matter what declarations he may have made that day in Caulfield. 

It turns out that Alex is just the choice that hurts too much. He needs time to cope with that, but he’ll figure it out.

What he’s not so sure he’s able to figure out is why Kyle is acting the way he is.

“The guy’s an idiot,” Kyle complains, when he brings pizza over to the cabin. This is minute six of Kyle’s rant about Michael’s behavior and considering Alex made peace with it a few months ago (once the rage and the grief and the loss left him), it’s kind of over the top. “First, he ditches you for her, then he dumps her, and now he’s getting arrested all the time? Why the hell didn’t he see what was right in front of his nose?”

Alex sighs and waits for a break in Kyle’s ranting. “I think it’s him spiralling with Max being gone. He’s a mess,” Alex says. He wishes that he could sympathize, but he doubts he’d feel anywhere near the same if something happened to one of his brothers.

“Whatever,” is Kyle’s irritated reply.

It makes things difficult because he also knows Michael is still pissed at how Kyle treated him in high school, so between the both of them, things get weird at the bunker when they meet to go over the files from Caulfield, to the point that Alex has to stop inviting them both there at once. Right now, their snipping and their bickering is verbal only, but he’s wary about them getting physical if their fights keep escalating.

He gets an earful about it from Michael constantly, like he still can’t believe that Alex has forgiven Kyle. Sometimes, Alex has to ask himself _why_ he did, but it doesn’t take very long for him to figure that one out. 

Sure, Kyle had been a dick to him back then, but the reparations he’s made are directly to Alex. Michael hasn’t had a chance to see them. It’s Kyle’s behavior that’s stranger, because it’s really Alex’s place to be upset about the decisions that Michael has made, not Kyle. Yet, Kyle’s taking them oddly personally, like he had something vested in it. 

It's the kind of weirdness that Alex could use advice on. 

“Kyle’s being weird,” Alex tells Liz when he turns up for coffee. He only comes to the Crashdown during the hours he knows Michael and Maria won’t be there. Alex might be better about dealing with what happened, but there’s no way he wants to rub salt in his wound, even if they’re not together anymore. That’s why he goes to the Crashdown when the Pony is open for business, seeing as the likelihood of Michael being at the bar, getting drunk, is high.

Liz turns around with the ketchup bottles that she’s refilling, which means that she probably hasn’t had any luck in the job search department. Alex decides not to ask, because he needs advice, not a rant about the Roswell bio-medical community and its lack of job postings.

Who better to ask about Kyle’s weird behavior than his ex?

“Define weird,” Liz says, leaning forward over the counter, clearly happy to abandon the ketchup. 

“He keeps trying to shove me towards Guerin or being really _weirdly_ over-invested in the fact that Guerin didn’t choose me,” Alex says. “I’ve told him that things are really awkward and that Guerin’s not ready for anything, but it keeps coming up. He tells me to go bring him food, to check on him, to plead my case.” He shakes his head, dipping one of his fries in his chocolate shake, his brow furrowed. “You don’t think that Kyle’s in love with Guerin, do you?”

Liz lets out a derisive scoff, but her gaze is fixed on Alex. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” Clearly, he doesn’t. 

“I think Kyle definitely has feelings for someone, but you’re overlooking the obvious.”

“You,” Alex replies, with a dumbfounded look, because he’d never overlook something that obvious. If Kyle’s not secretly harboring a torch for Michael, then it’s got to be Liz. “He wants you?”

Liz squints at him and leans forward to tap Alex just above his heart. “Or _you_. He’s not in the Crashdown with me for hours on end these days. Honestly, I’m lucky if I see Kyle once a week, he’s so tangled up in whatever you two do in that boys’ clubhouse of yours.”

Alex gapes at her, because the words don’t make any sense. Sure, Kyle’s come around and he’s a much better man than he’d been for those years when he’d tormented him, but Alex has chalked that up to him trying to make up for those high school days. He splutters, grateful that he hadn’t been sipping his coffee when she’d said it, because she’s crazy.

It’s crazy.

No, it’s _insane_.

“He couldn’t even stand being my friend when I came out,” Alex retorts. “You remember what he was like in high school, right? He made my life a living hell.”

Liz shrugs as she turns to put the ketchup bottles away, clearly buying into her own theories. “You’re the one who’s been telling me about how Kyle’s changed and how he’s been a better person,” she points out. “Maybe he wants you to be happy because he’s in love with you and he thinks that you’re in love with Michael.”

“I am in love with Michael,” Alex protests, because that should never be doubted.

Michael’s decided that it’s not enough to love him back. Things don’t always work out. He gets that now. Maybe someday, things will work out between them, but maybe they won’t. The thing that keeps rattling around his head is a question he doesn’t know how to answer.

No, that’s a lie. He does know how to answer it, he just doesn’t want to. 

It just feels an awful lot like the final nail in the coffin to answer the question, _Do you really intend to sit around waiting for Michael forever?_ because he already knows that the answer is no. This idea of moving on with _Kyle_ of all people is what’s tripping him up, because he’s already answered that question once before and it had been about Kyle, of all people.

Back when he was fourteen, the question looked a little more like, _Are you ready to wait until Kyle stops being a homophobic jackass?_ It had been a no then, and he thinks that it's a no now when it comes to the Michael question. 

Funny, really, how Alex is going in circles, back to Kyle from Michael. 

When he leaves, he takes a to-go coffee for Kyle with him, ignoring Liz’s pointed look. He’s known her long enough that he knows that look is a question in itself, about what it is exactly that Alex feels. 

He has a good idea, but he’s not sure if he’s ready to confront it until he finds out whether Kyle is overly invested in him and Michael because he’s their friend or because of some other reason. He’s gone down that painful rabbit hole once with Kyle becoming a jackass when Alex puts himself out there. He’s not ready to do that again without some proof, first.

* * *

“Liz has a crazy idea,” Alex shares when he returns with the coffee to find Kyle still at the bunker, still looking into aliens and their fathers’ transgressions. 

He’s been dancing around the idea of asking this, not really sure he’d wanted to bring it up to Kyle tonight, but he’s had the drive over to weigh the pros and cons, which has left Alex to decide that he wants to figure this out. That requires a frontal assault, surprising the target with the question, and getting a straight answer. Or, in normal people’s terms (Kyle’s terms, even), _talking_ to him. 

Kyle glances up from the letters they’ve been transcribing, looking wary. Rightfully so, given that Kyle and Liz had dated long enough that she might have all sorts of ideas about him. 

“Okay?” he says, when Alex doesn’t go on. “Do I want to know?”

“She thinks that the reason you’re being so weird and overcompensating when it comes to trying to push me towards Guerin is because you’re trying to ignore something that you want.” Liz thinks that it means Kyle wants Alex, but he’s not so sold on that yet. After all, there could be any number of reasons why Kyle’s acting the way he is.

Maybe it’s so he can forget what Jim Valenti did to Michael’s mother and his people. Maybe Kyle’s still feeling guilty for being such an asshole bully to Alex for years on years. There’s any number of reasonable explanations for why Kyle’s become their biggest cheerleader, even though Alex has told him firmly to _stop_.

Maybe Michael’s right. 

They’ve been holding on for so long, and if something between them had been meant to happen, then it should have happened already, right? 

Alex is so lost in his thoughts that it takes him a moment to realize that Kyle hasn’t said anything. In fact, he looks frozen in place and panicked, like Alex has found a key to a very secret safe. Holy shit. “Wait,” he says, and he actually can’t believe he’s about to say this. “_Wait_. Is Liz right?”

Kyle’s gone fully pale and his eyes keep skirting to the exit, like he wants to bolt. Alex steps sideways in a hurry to block it, refusing to let Kyle escape the situation. 

“Kyle…”

“Look, I know you want Guerin,” Kyle says. “You deserve that, Alex, but you deserve someone who’s going to love you, really love you and show that to you. I know Guerin loves you and his head is up his ass, so I figured I could push you two together to figure things out and fix it, that way you get to be happy.”

When he was thirteen, Alex dreamt nightly about Kyle. He thought about kissing him when they were curled up together in the treehouse, and when they talked about their futures, Alex hadn’t imagined that he had one without Kyle in it. 

Kyle expects him to think that a future where Alex is happy _has_ to be because of Michael? He’s so wrong that Alex doesn’t even know where to start, but he’s planning to go with the basics.

“You want me,” Alex says, and even though Kyle hasn’t outwardly said it, he gets the feeling that he’s not wrong. He watches Kyle carefully, and when it doesn’t look like he’s made a mistake, he keeps going. “You want me definitely more than just as a friend.” 

“We’re a good team, Alex, I’m not going to ruin that because what I feel makes this complicated,” Kyle says, with a defeated shrug.

“God, you’re an idiot,” Alex breathes out. 

After years of being in love with a genius, it’s definitely something of a change (though Michael is plenty stupid in his own ways). He knows that talking about this won’t prove anything to Kyle, and actions always did shout louder than words. He takes control of the situation, marching those few steps forward to grab Kyle by the shirt. 

Ignoring his babbling protests not to punch him, Alex does something better.

He frantically cups the back of his neck, tangles his fingers in his hair, and kisses Kyle Valenti the way he’s been dreaming about since he wished for this on a star that he saw outside their treehouse, all of thirteen and falling in love. At first, Kyle refuses to yield to it. He holds himself a distance away, as if he thinks he knows Alex better than him, but Alex is determined.

He grabs him and kisses him with deepness steeled by conviction and desire, and soon enough, Kyle _melts_. When he breathes out, it doesn’t hitch the way it does with Michael, but there’s a reverent sound on the exhalation, like Kyle can’t believe this is happening.

Alex can’t either, but that doesn’t mean he plans to stop it. His body rocks forward, like it’s ahead of the game, and he parts his lips to deepen the kiss, feeling the scrape of Kyle’s facial hair (so similar, yet so different than what he’s used to), but also what it’s like to kiss someone that you’ve loved for this long and not worry about what’s going to go wrong. 

Eventually, Alex pulls away, but only because he needs to breathe. He sags forward, forehead resting on Kyle’s shoulder, moving both his hands to grip at Kyle’s shirt, knowing it will wrinkle. He wants to ask if that really just happened.

Kissing Michael might be cosmic, but kissing Kyle is like _fireworks_ on the Fourth of July; beautiful and wild and terrifying because of what he’s lived through. Luckily, it looks like Kyle isn’t too upset, which means that maybe he’ll get more of them.

“Okay…” Kyle manages when he catches his breath. “I’m going to take a wild stab here and say that maybe you don’t want me pushing you towards Guerin anymore?”

It's time for Alex to revisit another door that he’s never been able to fully close. Feeling confident and sure of himself, he gives Kyle a crooked smile, not having let go of his hold of him yet. “I think your time is much better spent taking me out for dinner,” Alex says, his chin lifted up as he feels that sureness about what he’s done. “If you can handle that, _Magoo_.”

“You have no idea what I can handle.”

This is definitely going to be good, Alex thinks. “I can’t wait to find out.”


End file.
